


Having and Giving

by Sproutling



Series: Hold On (One More Time With Feeling) [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers Movie Night, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Gets a Hug, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Domestic Avengers, Gen, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:39:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproutling/pseuds/Sproutling
Summary: Tony didn’t soul-search, Tony... manfully pondered. And, as ever, he’d been unable to stop himself.
 Tony is secretly generous and Bucky needs things to cuddle because it (probably) can’t always be Steve.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daily/gifts).



> For my sister as one of many (very) late birthday presents... it's only little and maybe predictable too but it's fluffy and was very much written with you in mind :) Happy reading <3

Tony wasn’t even entirely sure what he’d intended, what outcome he’d been looking for, leaving the mass of synthetic brown fur on Bucky’s bed. It might have been purely for the amusement of it, if he hadn’t spent quite so long in the bedroom, fussing over how it sat atop the pillow. If he hadn’t spent quite so long picking it out. If he hadn’t held onto it, vacillating between handing it to Bucky himself to see his face and never ever letting anyone else know he’d bought it at all. After a lot of... well, _he_ wouldn’t call it ‘soul-searching’ but he was sure Bruce would, his little science bro was sweet that way... but Tony didn’t _soul-search_ , Tony... manfully pondered. And Tony had manfully pondered for a long time on whether it would be too much, too soon, _too childish_. And, as ever, he’d been unable to stop himself when it came to spoiling his friends, which is what Bucky had become. Steve’s quiet shadow; he was slowly, carefully coming out of his shell.

One of Tony’s very real concerns – in amongst his comparatively unimportant self-consciousness and thoughts of _‘what if he doesn’t like it, what if he wants something different, what if, what if, what if...’_ – was; what if it set Bucky back somehow? He knew he wasn’t the only one in the tower who watched his words and actions around the battered and recovering super soldier; none of them wanted to see him backslide. But last night had gone a long way to ease Tony’s worries.

Not all of them could be there – Clint and Nat had been sent _somewhere_ for _something_ and he knew all the details but SHIELD didn’t need to know that – and Bruce had been following a frustrating elusive formula of some kind in the lab for an unhealthy amount of time and had fallen asleep almost immediately. This left himself, Steve and Bucky to bask in the glow of his wall-sized TV screen as they marathoned Star Wars, Bruce’s deep breathing a quiet counterpoint to lightsaber swooshes and intergalactic engines powering through space. And the deep roaring that Tony’s superior sound system pulsed through the living room until it reverberated through each of them.

Tony had watched Bucky’s eyes linger on the fluffy, huggable creatures from other worlds and twitch restless fingers back and forth. He even petted with tiny movements at Steve’s loose sleeve where it rested on the couch between their hands. Those hands were never far from each other and, more often than not, connected the two like they were one being. Steveandbucky. Buckyandsteve.

Steve’s life as a child, sickly and living through the Depression, was one fact of many Tony’s father had waxed poetic over more than once. After meeting Steve, and – eventually – getting to know him as a friend and not the symbol of unattainable perfection his father had sought for so long, Tony had realised the extent to which his childhood had made him the frugal, always appreciative man he was.

Tony didn’t always see the point – he had more than enough money for Steve to bin half a sandwich if he didn’t want it all – but it was one of the things that made Steve who he was, and Tony could see the same in Bucky. And it was what made him want to buy them all the impulsive, fanciful, expensive and completely unnecessary things he could possibly think of. Steve had learned the futility of doing anything but accepting and enjoying his gifts and Tony had thus far avoided anything too over the top with Bucky, knowing how easily he could be overwhelmed. But this, seeing the restless hands and fixated gaze; he could see all too easily the little boy who’d had so little and, from what Steve had been revealing in bits and pieces, had given the little he did have to his smaller, sicklier friend. It’s what had propelled him into action the week before, the longing looks and restless hands through episodes I and II.

No one needed to know what he got up to in his lab after dark, if it happened to involve sourcing plush toys from around the world... well, that was probably much less dangerous than what they all thought he was doing. And it did take him awhile – it had to be accurate, but also cute, and well made, and hypoallergenic, and _just right_ – and eventually he’d found it and ordered it and from the moment he’d clicked, he’d worried. But last night...  and now, seeing it on Bucky’s pillow, all unassuming and adorable and as perfect as Tony could find without genetically engineering the real thing... which... _no_ , focus; Tony felt like he’d done something good.

And later that night, after a last drink with Steve, when he passed Bucky’s room on the way to the lift and his own floor and possibly some sleep, he couldn’t have stopped himself peeking in around the door if he’d tried. (He didn’t try.)

His eyes took awhile to adjust to the darkness and the sight before him resolved slowly. The bedding over – and around, and under – Bucky was in piles of soft fabric mountains that he’d squirmed them into in the short time he’d been asleep, but beside him it suddenly smoothed out to lie flat, neatly tucked around a bright-eyed wookie, lying on its back, head on the pillow beside Bucky’s and cinnamon-stick fur mingling with long, wayward, chocolate hair. He didn’t hold it to him in his sleep, but one hand rested between Bucky and the wookie, his two middle fingers still extended and resting against the fur where Tony could see he’d petted it until he fell asleep.

And as much as all of them living in the tower cooed over some of the gentle mannerisms that made Bucky the antithesis of the evil thing Hydra had tried to make him, Tony felt more like he’d been shoved hard in the chest; felt more the urge to gasp with the feeling than coo. He had done something _good_.

And he hadn’t even started with the army of ewoks waiting in his lab.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it :) *hands out many many ewoks* x


End file.
